Long-term care expert: Walker’s Family Care proposals are ‘in search of a solution where there is no problem’

A national expert on long-term care systems is questioning Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed changes to the state’s Family Care program, which provides services to the elderly, frail and disabled.

Walker’s 2015-17 budget proposes expanding the long-term care program statewide and having the organizations overseeing it operate as insurance companies.

The proposal would also focus Family Care around health outcomes and coordinate long-term, primary, acute and behavioral care, according to the Department of Health Services, which says the current model is fragmented.

But Larry Polivka, executive director of the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University, said the state has already connected long-term care with primary care.